PADMA, Bangladesh — In the days since a devastating cyclone struck impoverished Bangladesh, this village has grappled with impossible questions.
What happens to a fishing community when its fishing boats are in splinters? What happens to a woman who watches her mother and baby daughter drown? And what will happen to Padma if the villagers don’t receive clean drinking water soon?
Padma is on the coast of the Bay of Bengal in the Barguna district, one of the areas hit hardest by Tropical Cyclone Sidr, which killed more than 3,150 people across Bangladesh last week. Of 4,000 villagers scattered across rice paddies and coastline, Padma has counted 61 dead and 14 others are missing, residents said Tuesday.
Some homes in the village were crushed like soda cans. Others were left intact but tipped on their sides, windows facing the ground.
“We have nothing,” said Abdul Jabbar, 40, who lost his house in the storm and survived by climbing the tallest palm tree he could find. The water still nearly reached his feet. “What should I do? I have nowhere to go.”
This low-lying country has seen devastating storms before — in 1991, about 140,000 died in one cyclone. The government responded by installing a warning system and building thousands of shelters, including concrete boxes raised on pillars, measures that helped save many lives this time.
Before Sidr struck, the government warned citizens to leave low-lying areas, and about 1.5 million people made it to high ground or shelters. But many didn’t want to go or didn’t move quickly enough.
The speakers nestled in Padma’s palm trees that usually sound the mosque’s call to prayer were used to tell people to evacuate. Nearly half responded, going to a concrete school at the edge of town.
